


Ald Sotha

by TonalModulator



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, Chimeri platonic intimacy, Gen, Mortal Almsivi, pre-Battle of Red Mountain, pre-First Council
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21744067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TonalModulator/pseuds/TonalModulator
Summary: The destruction of Ald Sotha and its aftermath.
Relationships: Sotha Sil & Indoril Almalexia, Sotha Sil & Sotha Nall
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15
Collections: Holiday TES Fanfic Fest!





	1. Destruction

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:**
> 
> Write about a character or a group of characters (OCs or canon) encountering Daedra (can be Daedric princes or just general Daedra.) Bonus points if there's a battle or major conflict of some sort taking place between the mortal character(s) and the daedra, OR if it's about the protagonist being trapped in a Daedric prince's realm! Can take place during any Era.
> 
> Sil and Nall are probably in their 30s. It's definitely after Psijic SchoolTM but they're still in earlyish adulthood for Chimer.

Sil sat hunched over at his desk, puzzling over a partially deconstructed Dwemer spider, illuminated by a few magelights and the limited moonlight from the window. Despite the hour, he didn’t sit up or turn around when he heard footsteps enter his room.

“Go to bed, Nall.”

“You go to bed,” his sister replied, sitting down on the foot of his bed. “I can’t sleep. Why are you up so late?”

“Working on stuff,” Sil said.

“What kind of stuff?”

“Spiders. I think this one is a prototype. The resonator it uses looks new, and this looks like a soul gem.” He held out a translucent stone.

“Enchanted?” Nall tilted her head. “I thought the Dwemer didn’t use the same methods to enchant as we do.”

“So did I. And I can’t detect any enchantment.”

“What’s the soul gem for, then?”

“I can only imagine it is a power source, but it certainly doesn’t want to power up for me. I even tried replacing the gem. That’s what makes me think it’s a prototype. They may not have perfected the method yet.”

“What kind of soul is it?” Nall asked.

“This one is so depleted that it’s hard to tell, but I think it’s some non-sapient creature,” he said, “Three help us if they figure out how to harness the souls of mer and men.”

Nall cringed in agreement. “I’d hate to die only to end up powering a spider that gets taken apart by some nerd.” She ignored Sil’s side-eye. “I wonder what a mer’s soul could power. Maybe a whole stronghold. That would be more worthwhile.” She paused, then made a face, shaking her head. “Nah, I wouldn’t want to power a Dwemer stronghold either. Maybe something more…noble. Unification of competing forces and all that. Something that would make me feel like I really transcended.”

Sil watched his sister with admiration as she spoke. She was always thinking in grand and noble terms like this. Sometimes he felt bad for being the older one. As much as Nall hated the idea, she would make a good High Councilor of the House. Better than he would, in his opinion.

“Why do they have so many spiders, anyway?” she asked without segue.

“I think they run messages through the strongholds.”

“Why spiders though? Why not, say, mice? Or, what are those Nordic things?”

“Skeevers?”

“Skeevers, yeah! Why not those?”

“I suppose that would make more sense,” Sil agreed with a laugh. “Maybe they just like the tap-tap-tap-tap sounds of all the legs.”

The room grew darker as the moonlight from the window disappeared. Curious, Nall came over to look out the window, and Sil extinguished the magelights so that they could see better. It seemed that the sky had suddenly become covered in a thick layer of cloud.

“Strange…” Sil said.

On a closer look, they realized that much of the occlusion was actually from smoke, which seemed to be coming from within the town, on the other side of the house. The outside began to light up again, but instead of moonlight, the light was a reddish color, as if supplied by a fire.

“Is there some sort of festival tonight?” Sil asked. Nall shook her head. “Then what is going on…”

They both jumped at the sound of loud crashes nearby, accompanied by screaming. This was definitely not the sound of an impromptu festival, at least not one honoring Azura. Whatever was going on, it was their responsibility to assess the situation and help the townspeople, if necessary. They ran out of Sil’s room toward the stairs.

“Hang on,” Nall said. She dipped into her room briefly to grab a jack and a sword, and then ran back out to join Sil.

The crashing, which had been growing louder by the second, suddenly peaked at a deafening level. They stopped dead as the house shook violently. Barely inches in front of them, some unknown force came down and crushed the side of the house. They stood frozen for several seconds, processing their brush with death, as well as the near-certainty that their parents had not been so lucky.

“We have to jump out the window,” Sil said finally. “Come on. I’ll slowfall us.”

Once on the ground, they carefully ran around to the front of the house, to the source of the destruction. Sil’s stomach dropped as he saw that that the source was none other than Destruction itself, the Daedric Prince Mehrunes Dagon. From what they could see through the smoke, and from the smell, the town was already almost completely in ruin. Such was the power of a Daedric Prince presented with a small town with little to no defenses.

Wasting no time, Nall sprinted ahead to engage two Dremora who were prowling the area.

“What are you _doing_?” Sil called after her, though he supported her with a stream of protective spells and the occasional heal.

Unfortunately, the protections were not suited to handle the fireball that came flying at her from a distance. It took her and her enemies down instantly.

Ignoring the Dremora, Sil rushed over to Nall, waving a spell to extinguish the remaining flames from the projectile. He almost expected her to get up and keep fighting before he could even reach her, but when he arrived, Nall was still lying motionless where she fell. He picked her up. He couldn’t tell if she was even breathing, but he knew the only way to help was to get her to safety before things could get any worse. He turned to carry her over to the back of the house, when there was another crash and a huge piece of stone debris shot toward them, ripping Nall away from Sil, and taking his arms with her.

The force knocked him over, and he struggled to get up, instinctively trying to use limbs that he hadn’t quite realized were gone. Once on his feet, he looked toward the pile where the debris had landed and made the snap decision to find safety, knowing that to go searching for his dead sister—because she was now certainly dead—while bleeding himself would only hasten his reunion with his family.

He stumbled to the back of the house, miraculously avoiding being targeted by any more flying destructive forces. It was already getting quieter. He could hardly hear any more screaming, though he was not sure if that was because everyone was dead or because he was losing consciousness. Despite the horror and blood loss clouding his mind, he forced himself to focus. He sat down against the wall and worked to stop the bleeding from his shoulders. Without hands to guide the magicka, the task was harder than expected.

Once his wounds were stabilized, Sil wondered what to do next. What _could_ he do? He considered praying to Azura. But, for what? Safety? Why would he deserve that, when his whole House was destroyed? To fill her in on what had happened when she apparently wasn’t paying attention? What would she do, and why hadn’t she done it already? The more Sil thought about it, the more aversive the idea seemed. He couldn’t imagine going through the motions of extolling the virtues of the Most Merciful Prince of Dawn and Dusk while his entire town burned around him. Azura was a Daedra, just like Dagon. They did not care for mortals; that much was clear. Instead, he simply stared ahead and let the fog in his mind consume him.


	2. Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mournhold hears of the disturbance in Ald Sotha; guards are dispatched to investigate.

The very sleepy Nerevar Mora did his best not to stumble as he threw on something a little more presentable than his pajamas and headed down to the guard station, still half-asleep. One of his scouts, Merelasa Selothan, had brought a report from the Ascadian Isles and insisted that he be woken up to receive it. Apparently, it was too urgent to wait for him get the last couple hours of beauty sleep. Such was the life of the captain of the Mournhold guard, he supposed.

“Serjo,” Merelasa greeted her captain with a salute.

Nerevar returned the salute. “Report.”

“There has been some sort of disturbance in the Ascadian Isles, around the town of Ald Sotha,” she said. “Lots of fire and explosions, and then…nothing. We think it was Daedric in nature, probably Dagon. It looks like the place was leveled, but we didn’t have the numbers to investigate for ourselves.”

The now very awake Nerevar Mora considered the report. “Daedric…Do you think it was cultists?”

“Honestly, serjo, no. The scale of the destruction…it was nothing mortals could do, in my opinion. I think it was the Prince himself.”

Nerevar nodded solemnly. “Thank you for your report, Merelasa. You were right to wake me. I will have a squad sent out there immediately.”

* * *

Vehk was already mostly awake when Captain Mora came to the barracks to get hir. Ze had been woken up moments earlier by a strange dream, somewhat nightmarish. Fire and threads and friends and gods…it was fading already. Ze sat up, rubbed hir eyes, and glanced around, still a little fogged by post-dream confusion, trying to get hir bearings.

“Oh, Vehk, what are you doing awake?” the captain asked.

Vehk yawned. “Bad dream.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Nerevar said quickly, distracted by the task that had brought him there. “I have an assignment for you. Meet me in my office for a briefing.”

Vehk nodded sleepily and stumbled out of bed. Ze got dressed and met Nerevar as ordered a few minutes later.

“I need you to take a squad to Ald Sotha,” Nerevar instructed. He recounted what the scout had reported. “Check for survivors, and bring back a full report of the situation, if you can.”

“Yes, serjo.”

“But be careful. We could be dealing with an entire Daedric Prince. If you get in over your head, just recall back.”

“Understood.”

* * *

The ruins of the town were still smoldering when Vehk and hir squad arrived in the vicinity in the late afternoon. The scene was one of absolute destruction. It looked like the town had been repeatedly exploded, with the charred remains of buildings scattered around. The only structure still fully standing was the shrine to Mehrunes Dagon in the center of the town.

Vehk cast a life-detecting spell as they got closer. Only one faint signal lit up on the edge of town, but they were still far enough away that there could be more survivors among the wreckage.

“Scout the town and see what you can find,” ze instructed hir squad.

Instead of joining them right away, ze took a direct path to the life signal. A mer was sitting against a building at a strange angle. As ze got closer, Vehk realized that the strange angle was due to him not having arms. Without the help of the detection spell, Vehk might have thought he was dead.

“Sera?” Vehk said, crouching down and nudging the mer. He seemed to be around Vehk’s age, maybe a few years older. “Sera, can you hear me?”

The mer blinked awake and looked around as if surprised to be alive.

Vehk held up a skin of water. “Would you like a drink?”

He nodded and straightened up slightly, moving as if to take the skin, but then remembered. “I…I can’t…” he croaked.

“That’s all right. I can help.” Vehk held the skin to the mer’s lips so he could take a sip. “I’m Vehk. I’m with the Mournhold guard. What’s your name, sera?”

“Sotha Sil,” the mer replied.

“Sotha Sil…” Vehk repeated. “You’re a noble of Ald Sotha?”

“I am,” Sil said. Then his face fell as the weight of the last night began to hit him. “I was.”

“I’m sorry, serjo,” Vehk said softly. “We heard reports of something going on around here, and Captain Nerevar Mora ordered me to take a squad to check it out. I wish we could have gotten here earlier, but our closest mark was in Ebonheart.”

“Did anyone survive?”

Vehk hesitated. “The rest of the squad are still looking, but you’re the only one I detected.”

Sil turned partway around with great effort and, from Vehk’s perspective, scanned the wall that was now in front of his face.

“I see five walking around,” he said, turning back to face Vehk. “Are those your people?”

Vehk realized after a second that Sil must have cast his own detection spell without an accompanying hand motion. Ze nodded grimly.

“It was so fast,” Sil said, as if he was now accepting the reality of the situation. “We didn’t stand a chance.”

“Why don’t you come with us, serjo?” Vehk asked gently. “You can stay in Mournhold while everything gets sorted out.”

“What about the remains?” Sil asked.

“We’ll gather them up so that you can see to them when you’re well, if you’d like,” Vehk suggested. “Do you have a tomb?”

“By the Azura shrine on the opposite end of town,” Sil said. Then, noticing Vehk’s nervous expression, he added, “If it still stands, that is.”

“We will figure something out,” Vehk said. “Your ancestors will be treated with care and respect; I can promise you that.”

That was what they all were now, Sil realized. Ancestors. Parents, grandparents, cousins, friends, elders and infants. Even his younger sister. All ancestors. Simply because some twist of fate left him on the edge of the destruction while everyone else was in the middle of it. All he could do now was be a living remnant deserving of their guidance. He vowed silently to do that much.


	3. Mournhold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vehk and company take Sil to Mournhold. Almalexia comes to see Sil.

“Have you been here before?” Vehk asked when the squad arrived with Sotha Sil back in Mournhold.

“Oh, yes,” Sil said. “Serjo Almalexia is a childhood friend of mine.”

“Oh, then I’ll be sure she knows your safe,” Vehk said. “If Serjo Nerevar told her about the disturbance, then she’s probably been worrying about you all day.”

Sil’s stomach dropped as he thought of how Almalexia would take the news. They had known each other forever, and Almalexia had spent about as much time in Ald Sotha growing up as Sil had spent in Mournhold, which was considerable. The town was like a second home to her, and its people were practically her family. And Nall…how would he break the news about Nall? The three of them had been inseparable growing up, and Almalexia and Nall had shared a relationship for some time that would likely have lasted much longer if not for Almalexia’s responsibilities to her House. The loss would hit her almost as hard as it hit him.

Vehk led Sil up a few flights of stairs and into a suite. Sil recognized the wing as one for noble guests. He wondered with some dark humor in spite of himself if he would be relegated to the common guest quarters once they realized he was no longer a noble of anything in particular.

“I need to make my report to Serjo Nerevar, but either I or someone else from the guard will be back very soon to help you get settled,” Vehk said.

Sil bowed. “Thank you, Vehk.”

There was not much Sil could do in the meantime. He didn’t have a change of clothes yet, nor anything to idly tinker with—or the hands to do the tinkering. He decided that the best thing to do for now was to lie down. Despite already having slept for the better part of the day, he found he was still incredibly exhausted. Losing one’s limbs, family, and town in one night seemed to have that effect on a person.

There was a knock on the door a few minutes later. The door opened before he could even sit up, let alone invite the visitor in.

“Seht?” came a familiar voice.

“Ayem!” Sil stood to greet Lady Almalexia just in time for her to crash into him with a running hug. Although he wished it were under better circumstances, he couldn’t help but laugh with tempered joy at seeing her again, and her joy seemed to match his own.

“You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t hug you back,” he said.

“That’s okay,” Almalexia said quietly, still squeezing him tight. “I can hug you enough for both of us.”

She finally released him and stepped back to look him over. He was quite a sight in his charred and blood-stained pajamas and hair that looked as if he’d slept against a wall.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said.

She set down the clothes she’d brought for him and went to the tub to draw a bath. Once the enchantment to heat the water was set, she turned back to Sil to help him get undressed. She pulled his shirt off over his head while he awkwardly shimmied in an attempt to feel like he was helping, and dropped it on the floor.

With his shoulders now exposed, she was able to take a look at the wounds where his arms had been. Both had been ripped off cleanly at the joint, but the healing was crude and clearly rushed. She reached up to gingerly touch the wound at his left shoulder.

“Who healed your arms?” she asked.

“I did.”

“Hmm,” she said with a gently teasing expression. “Remind me never to ask you for a heal.”

Sil half-laughed. “Sorry, I was a little preoccupied, what with the bleeding out after picking up my sister’s maybe-dead body and watching a rock rip her and my arms away. And it was a little hard to guide the magic—did I mention I lost my arms?”

Ayem’s expression sobered. “I’ll take a look at it once you’re clean,” she said.

They were mostly quiet during the bath and afterward, and what words they shared were focused on the logistics of bathing without arms. Once the blood and grime of the previous night had been washed away, Almalexia helped him get dressed in the fresh set of clothes she’d brought for him, leaving his shirt off for now.

They sat down on the bed, and Almalexia combed and braided his hair. When that was done, she moved to his right side so that she could begin to focus on re-healing his shoulders. She ran a hand gently over the wound to assess its current state and determine how to go about fixing it. When she finished her triage, she prepared a spell in each hand.

“I’ll have to re-open it briefly in order to fix it,” she said. “You won’t feel it, but there may be a little blood.”

“Understood.”

Almalexia began slowly guiding her hands down the wound, using one hand to undo Sil’s shoddy skin-weaving spell, and trailing the other right behind the first to knit the skin back together properly.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” she asked gently while she worked.

Sil nodded slowly and recounted the events of the previous night for her. Already, some of the memories were foggy. Whether that was due to the blood loss or a response to the trauma, he could not say, but it did concern him. He made a mental note to find some way to record the memories, lest the final moments of his House slip away into Oblivion like the Prince who took them.

“So, you were the only survivor…” She let her hands fall as she finished her work on his right shoulder. She sat for a moment in contemplative silence before she moved to his other side to continue her work.

Sil knew she was thinking about Nall.

“I’m so sorry, Ayem,” he said. “I tried to save her. You know Nall, she just grabbed her sword on the way out and charged in, taking on the first dremora she could find. I was behind her throwing wards and heals to try to keep her safe…” He took a breath as his eyes finally filled with tears. “He was just crushing entire buildings in one swing—our house, our _parents_. The fire…exploded, and she just went down. I don’t even know if it killed her. I ran over and picked her up, and there was another explosion…” He paused to take another breath, the tears now flowing freely. “By then, there wasn’t any doubt, but I _still_ wanted to go after her, just to be sure, but I didn’t have arms to dig her out and I was getting dizzy from blood loss and from all the noise—”

“Shh. It’s okay, Seht,” Ayem said, looking away from his shoulders and forcing a smile. “It’s not your fault. At all. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.” She kissed him on the cheek and rested her chin on his shoulder. “You lost your entire House. You have more right to mourn than I do. Don’t worry about me.”

“Nall is worth mourning as much as the entire House,” Sil mumbled.

Almalexia returned her attention to Sil’s shoulders with a small nod. It was lucky that she was almost finished healing him, because her vision was starting to blur with tears as well. When she was finished, she lay back on the bed and held an arm out to invite her friend to lie next to her. He clumsily obliged, flopping down without any means of steadying himself. She pulled him in and held him tight. Although it had been a while since they had last seen each other, the embrace came with a familiar sense of friendly intimacy that they had always shared. That familiarity brought Seht a great deal of comfort, and just as much pain, as he realized it was one of the last remaining scraps of what he could call home. Before he even realized he had let his guard down, he was sobbing into Ayem’s chest.

He woke up some time later—he wasn’t sure how long it had been.

“Sleep well?” Ayem asked when she felt him stir. Seht looked up at her apologetically, and noticed that her eyes were puffy. “You needed the rest,” she said simply. “I should get back to work, though. Will you be okay on your own?”

Seht nodded. He appreciated the thought, and in truth, he was not looking forward to being alone. But he knew Ayem had her duties, and he had already taken her away from them for an unknown amount of time.

Ayem sat up and helped Seht sit up with her.

“I’ll have Nerevar post Vehk to guard your room,” she said. “Ze’s the best, and you already know hir, so you don’t have to worry about meeting any more new people right now.”

Seht gave a grateful smile. It was nice to have a friend who was aware of his needs and willing to accommodate for them.

Ayem paused to think for a moment, and then said, “I wonder if you could build yourself new arms. Do you still have any of those Dwemer parts you like to tinker with?”

“I doubt any survived.”

“Well,” she said, barely concealing her scheming expression. “As the trafficking of Dwemeri goods is frowned upon in Mournhold, I am sure you won’t be able to find any here. And I am _sure_ Vehk knows nothing of the black market—which does not exist, to be clear—and therefore wouldn’t be able to help you. I know that I won’t be planting any ideas with hir, anyway.” She met his eyes and let her mischievous smile turn soft. “Get some more rest. We will see each other again soon.”


End file.
